Focused on playing EVE the wrong way

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Monthly Archives: August 2015

Since parking my Orca Mobile home a couple weeks ago I haven’t done a great deal in EVE. Since no one is relying on me in game, I can do that without guilt.

I have already gone through several large asset decluttering and consolidation phases over the last year, and I figured it was time for another round. It should only have taken me a couple of days, but I have rarely been in the right frame of mind.

The right frame of mind can be elusive. On the first day I looked at my Corporation’s POS hanger and saw nothing to sell. It was the same on the second, third and fourth days. On the fifth day however I suddenly wondered why I was storing 3 complete POS setups, along with a years’ worth of fuel for each of them. Now I am down to one Hi-Sec research POS with fitting options and 3 months of fuel for it. On day six I might decide I don’t even need that.

As I have said, I am doing this in part as I have found it difficult to manage such a large collection of assets with all the regular game balance changes. I am also however finding it somewhat liberating. I hadn’t realised just how much I had become shackled to my inventory.

Now I find myself going through the laborious process of hauling and selling. My Industry Alt has been kept busy. While doing this I have been reading a lot on EVE.

There was an interesting article from CSMX member Manfred Sideous on EN24.

He reminds us of the passion many DEV’s have for the game, flags the increasing aggression the player base has towards them, and gives some interesting insights on the CSM and CCP interaction. I particularly liked this quote: “The CSM can advocate for anything; how CCP acts is never a sure thing. Even when we can be sure they’ll take some action, the means they choose are often impossible to predict”. It was worth a read.

There have been plenty of interesting thoughts on the Imperium’s short Burn Providence campaign.

Talvorian Dex commented on his disquiet for the reasons behind it. A worthwhile read – particularly when you take in comments from people involved on both sides:

Rixx Javix reports on his Alliance (A Band Apart) securing its first system in Null, and while he thinks FozzieSov can be improved, he said “in general I strongly believe that it is the best thing that has happened in Eve for a long, long time.”

. It has reduced the land holdings of the old guard Sov players
. It has allowed smaller groups to consider getting involved in Sov
. There is not enough consequence or cost for attackers
. Defenders have to do a lot of work for possibly not enough benefit having Sov
. It can generate engaging game play between active PVP focused players
. It needs continued iteration

So it has more promise than it might have first appeared, but the change over from old to new will likely come at a painful cost.

What does stand out for me at the moment is that it is not at all friendly towards the casual player, and possibly too negative for the more carebear player who likes the idea of building a home instead of just wrecking other people’s homes.

The first time I started the launcher it didn’t seem to successfully identify the game client needed patching.

The second time it started a 25MB download, but stopped on 17MB for a very long time before giving me a long error text. I’ve never seen that before.

The third time told me I needed to run the repair tool, which I did without issue.

The fourth time it again started a 25MB download – stopping and starting as it went. A little later while I was looking at the forums I noticed the launcher was no longer running. This is not uncommon for launcher updates though.

The firth time I started the launcher it again downloaded a patch file, a couple hundred MB if I remember. This process also had long pauses at various times. I went away and did something else, and by the time I came back the game was patched and I was able to log in.

Other people were having similar issues – and were complaining about them in the forums. Again – the level of vitriol directed at CCP seemed to be all out of proportion to the situation. Surely it must be aggravating CCP staff.

(As if to add weight to my thoughts, we just had an earth tremor here.)

I am having to make a conscious effort at the moment not to be dragged down by the melancholy that seems to hang over portions of the EVE community.

My six year old daughter comes home from school most days with dirty clothes and shoes filled with sand.

She loves spending a lot of her free time playing in the Sandpit. She has no compunction to play there alone if her friends happen to be doing something else. With a bit of effort (often collaborative), imagination, plus some twigs, leaves and rocks thrown in for good measure, she finds a world of seemingly endless entertainment.

I asked her this week why she didn’t use the playground equipment more. I was quietly thinking it would save me a lot of washing. She remarked that it was boring because it was always the same.

I think she will like EVE when she gets older, and have the right mindset for it.

The Nosy Gamer mentioned some Russian Alliances were protesting in Jita over the Sovereignty changes. That is useful to know if you are planning a shopping trip. Ironically they seem to be protesting that the changes are having the impact they were designed to – making it harder for Alliances to hold huge sways of space that they do not actively use. CCP Goal achieved?

I first noticed this linked to on Sand Cider and Spaceships. While I don’t agree with every comment, it is a very reasonable overview of a lot of issues flagged around Fozziesov and suggested solutions. I will say one thing – a lot of these were flagged by players well before the mechanism was introduced.

** EDIT

The first set of changes to Null Sov have been announced. A step towards what some players have been asking for.

I’m back in my home station with my travelling Orca. I have several hundred million ISK worth of loot to sell and some ship fittings and spares to fine tune and update. I also need to continue with my general asset reduction.

My Orca roam was a success, and I plan on moving out again in it shortly. I’ll start with visiting the Bleak Lands. The only issue I’ve really had was the discomfort I felt hauling all those ships through Niarja or Uedama. Every time I relocated I passed through one, the other, or both of them.

A follow up on something I mentioned at the end of June. I am still employed. I listened to middle managements ideas on generating more work, but could see they would accomplish little. (Why do so many people in that position take inspiration instead of irony from Dilbert?) I then went to the MD and had a candid conversation about the future prospects of my job. There is unlikely to be much work for me in the medium term, but they consider the service I work in to be strategically important to maintain.

While their reasoning is valid, I do quietly wonder if that strategy includes having me on the books as a sacrificial lamb the next time the International Accountants come demanding head count. Come what may, the job is convenient while it lasts. I’m just not sure if it will be for a week or a year.

Without trying to add to the drama, and mindful of the solo focused way I play EVE, I did want to remark on a concern I have about the Entosis mechanism.

It expects pilots to be consistently available to play EVE in certain windows of time. Step outside of Empire or want to use larger structures, and those windows grow in size.

It puts casual players defending at a distinct disadvantage.

In 2014 the average age of the EVE player was around 32. That is a prime time to be managing a career, marriage, kids, mortgage, and all the responsibilities of adulthood. I have a suspicion that many EVE players are actually more casual in nature, with limited free time and flexibility.

I currently only have one semi-reliable window to play EVE each week, between 10 am and Noon on Sunday. I manage to play then maybe 50% of the time. The rest of my EVE sessions are a sporadic 30 minutes here, 60 minutes there. I commonly only spend a few hours a week undocked. There is no way I can cover even the most basic of vulnerability windows.

Boohoo, it’s tough to be me.

What if the 4 or 5 real life friends I’ve historically played EVE with returned? They are busy like me. What sort of vulnerability window would we be able to reliably cover as a group? A medium structure in High-Sec should be fine, but we wouldn’t manage a large structure in a wormhole.

How many casual players would I need to get together to do something in Null-Sec?

The Entosis mechanism should work ok for a large, well organised group of defenders – even if mostly casual. They will have their procedures documented and down pat, suitable doctrine ships available on contract, and a critical mass of pilots. Even if only a couple percent of them are online during vulnerable periods, they can put up a suitable defence and not burn out.

But these same groups were able to exist comfortably enough under the Dominion Sovereignty system. I didn’t want to join them then, and I don’t want to join them now.

For defending groups without that critical mass, I can see a situation where their pilots quickly tired of having to align their play time and in game focus just on the Entosis Mechanism.

Thinking at the smaller end of the scale, I don’t think there should be such a focus on pilots being online. A POS can currently automatically defend itself – so should sovereignty and player structures. Make a player have to configure them appropriately, and accept a loss of utility for this defence. Obviously also make such a defence more effective if manned, like POS are now.

I don’t like the idea of being trolled out of assets because I don’t have hours of free time to sit around, not having fun, babysitting them. I am far more likely to put the time and expense into using mechanisms like this when I feel attackers have to make some non-trivial risk and effort to remove them.

It is hard to say all this without looking like a tool with a large sense of self entitlement. I don’t expect EVE to cater to my unique circumstance. Hopefully I am wrong and casual players are in fact in the minority. If I am right however, I’m not sure the current mechanism as is will be healthy long term.

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